2-708-768 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

'Portrait of the Composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky', 1881, (1965). Russian composer Modest Petrovich Musorgsky (1839-1881), painted in hospital 10 days before his death. In the words of an eye-witness, "with every possible inconvenience; the painter did not even have an easel and he had to perch at a desk before which the ailing Musorgsky sat in an armchair." Repin declined to accept payment for the work and he contributed to the raising of a monument for the composer. Painting in the State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. From "Russian Painting of the 18th and 19th Centuries" by Vladimir Fiala. [Artia, Czechoslovakia, 1965]